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_Baseball Joe Around the World_ Page 221]
BASEBALL JOE
AROUND THE WORLD
or
Pitching on a Grand Tour
By LESTER CHADWICK
AUTHOR OF
"BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS," "BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE,"
"THE RIVAL PITCHERS," "THE RIGHT-OARED VICTORS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
New York
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOOKS BY LESTER CHADWICK
THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated
BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES
12 mo. Cloth. Illustrated
THE RIVAL PITCHERS
A QUARTERBACK'S PLUCK
BATTING TO WIN
THE WINNING TOUCHDOWN
THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York
Copyright, 1918, by
Cupples & Leon Company
Baseball Joe Around the World
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I In Deadly Peril 1
II Quick As Lightning 12
III The Stranger's Visit 22
IV The Top Of The Wave 32
V Lucky Joe 40
VI Circling The Globe 49
VII The Gathering Of The Clans 60
VIII The Rival Teams 67
IX The Under Dog 75
X By A Hair 84
XI A Close Call 93
XII A Dastardly Attack 103
XIII Danger Signals 112
XIV A Weird Game 119
XV The Bewildered Umpire 128
XVI Putting Them Over 135
XVII "Man Overboard" 143
XVIII One Strike And Out 150
XIX Braxton Joins The Party 155
XX In Mikado Land 164
XXI Running Amuck 175
XXII Taking A Chance 183
XXIII An Embarrassed Rescuer 191
XXIV The Blow Falls 200
XXV The Cobra In The Room 207
XXVI In The Shadow Of The Pyramids 213
XXVII The Signed Contract 220
XXVIII Whirlwind Pitching 227
XXIX The Ruined Castle 234
XXX Brought To Book--Conclusion 240
BASEBALL JOE AROUND
THE WORLD
CHAPTER I
IN DEADLY PERIL
"Great Scott! Look at this!"
Joe Matson, or "Baseball Joe," as he was better known throughout the
country, sprang to his feet and held out a New York paper with headlines
which took up a third of the page.
There were three other occupants of the room in the cozy home at
Riverside, where Joe had come to rest up after his glorious victory in the
last game of the World's Series, and they looked up in surprise and some
alarm.
"Land's sakes!" exclaimed his mother, pausing just as she was about to
bite off a thread. "You gave me such a start, Joe! What on earth has
happened?"
"What's got my little brother so excited?" mocked his pretty sister,
Clara.
"Has an earthquake destroyed the Polo Grounds?" drawled Jim Barclay,
Joe's special chum and fellow pitcher on the Giant team.
"Not so bad as that," replied Joe, cooling down a bit; "but it's something
that will make McRae and the whole Polo Grounds outfit throw a fit if it's
true."
Jim snatched the paper from Joe's hands, with the familiarity born of long
acquaintance, and as his eyes fell on the headlines he gave a whistle of
surprise.
"'Third Major League a Certainty,'" he read. "Gee whiz, Joe! I don't
wonder it upset you. That's news for fair."
"Is that all?" pouted Clara, who had been having a very interesting
conversation with handsome Jim Barclay, and did not relish being
interrupted.
Mrs. Matson also looked relieved and resumed her sewing.
"Is that all?" cried Joe, as he began to pace the floor excitedly. "I tell
you, Sis, it's plenty. If it's true, it means the old Brotherhood days all
over again. It means a fight to disrupt the National and the American
Leagues. It means all sorts of trickery and breaking of contracts. It
means distrust and suspicion between the members of the different teams.
It means--oh, well, what doesn't it mean? I'd rather lose a thousand
dollars than know that the news is true."
"But perhaps it isn't true," suggested Clara, sobered a little by her
brother's earnestness. "You can't believe half the things you see in the
papers."
"Will it hurt your position with the Giants, Joe?" asked Mrs. Matson, her
motherly instincts taking alarm at anything that threatened her idolized
son.
Joe stopped beside his mother's chair and patted her head affectionately.
"Not for a long time if at all, Momsey," he replied reassuringly. "My
contract with the Giants has two years to run, and it's as good as gold,
even if I didn't throw a ball in all that time. It wasn't the money I was
thinking about. As a matter of fact, I could squeeze double the money out
of McRae, if I were mean enough to take advantage of him. It's the damage
that will be done to the game that's bothering me."
"Perhaps it won't be as bad as you think," ventured his mother. "You know
the old saying that 'the worst things that befall us are the things that
never happen.'"
"That's the way to look at it," broke in Jim heartily. "Let's take a
squint at the whole article and see how much fire there is in all this
smoke."
"And read it out loud," said Clara. "I'm just as much of a baseball fan as
either of you two. And Momsey is, too, after all the World's Series games
she's seen played."
It is to be feared that Mrs. Matson's eyes had been so riveted on Joe
alone, in that memorable Series when he had pitched his team to victory,
that she had not picked up many points about the game in general. But
anything that concerned her darling boy concerned her as well, and she let
her sewing lie unheeded in her lap as Joe read the story from beginning to
end.
"Seems to be straight goods," remarked Jim, as Joe threw the paper aside.
"They've got the money all right," rejoined Joe. "They've got two or three
millionaires who are willing to take a chance and put up the coin."
"One of the names seems to be rather familiar," remarked Jim, with a
sidewise look at Joe. "Do you remember him?"
"I remember him," replied Joe grimly, "but I'd bet a dollar against a
plugged nickel that he remembers me better yet."
"Who is it?" asked Clara with quickened interest.
"Beckworth Fleming," replied Joe.
"Rather a pretty name," remarked Mrs. Matson absently.
"Prettier than he was when Joe got through with him," interposed Jim with
a grin.
Mrs. Matson looked up, shocked.
"Oh, I hope Joe didn't hurt him!" she exclaimed.
"Whatever Joe did was for the good of his soul," laughed Jim. "I can't say
as much for his body."
"It's all right, Momsey," smiled Joe. "He was insolent to Mabel, and I had
to give him a thrashing. But that's neither here nor there. He's the
spoiled son of a very rich man, and he's one of the men behind this new
league. 'A fool and his money are soon parted,' and he'll probably be
wiser when he gets through with this than he is now."
"But why shouldn't they start a new league if they want to?" asked Mrs.
Matson. "I should think they had a right to, if they wanted to do it."
"Of course they have a right to," agreed Joe. "This is a free country, and
any man has a right to go into any legitimate business if he thinks
there's money in it. Neither the National League nor the American League
have a mortgage on the game. But the trouble is that there aren't enough
good players to go round. All the really good ones have been already
gobbled up by the present leagues. If the new league started in with
unknown players, it wouldn't take in enough money to pay the batboys. The
consequence is that it tries to get the players who are already under
contract by making them big offers, and that leads to all sorts of
dishonesty. You take a man who is making three thousand a year and offer
him six if he'll break his contract, and it's a big temptation."
"They'll be after you, Joe, sure as shooting," remarked Jim. "It would be
a big feather in their cap to start off with copping the greatest pitcher
in the game. They'd be willing to offer you a fortune to get you. They
figure that after that start the other fellows they want will be tumbling
over themselves to get aboard."
"Let them come," declared Joe. "I'll send them off with a flea in their
ear. They'll find that I'm no contract jumper."
"I'm sure that you'd never do anything mean," said his mother, looking at
him fondly.
"There isn't a crooked bone in his head," laughed Clara, making a face at
him as he threatened her with his fist.
"The contract is enough," said Joe; "but even if I were a free agent, I
wouldn't go with the new league and leave McRae in the hole. I feel that I
owe him a lot for the way he has treated me. He took me from a
second-string team and gave me a chance to make good on the Giants. He
took a chance in offering me a three-year contract in place of one. I'm
getting four thousand, five hundred a year, which is a good big sum
whatever way you look at it. And you remember how promptly he came across
with that thousand dollars for winning twenty games last season."
"We remember that, don't we, Momsey?" said Clara, patting her mother's
hand.
"I should say we did," replied Mrs. Matson, while a suspicious moisture
came into her eyes. "Will we ever forget the day when we opened that
letter from the dear boy, and the thousand-dollar bill fell out on the
table? It gave us all the happiest time we have had in all our lives."
Jim, too, mentally blessed that big bill which had brought the Matson
family to witness the World's Series games and so had enabled him to meet
Joe's charming sister. Perhaps that vivacious young lady read what was
passing in his mind, for her eyes suddenly dropped as they met Jim's
eloquent ones.
Joe flushed at this reference to his generosity, and Clara was quick to
cover her own slight confusion by rallying her brother.
"He's blushing!" she declared.
"I'm not," denied Joe stoutly, getting still redder.
"You are so," averred his sister in mock alarm. "Stop it, Joe, before it
gets to your hair. I don't want a red-headed brother."
Joe made a dash at his tormentor, but she eluded him and got into another
room.
"Come along, Jim," said Joe, picking up his cap. "Let's warm up a little.
We want to keep our salary wings in good condition, and maybe the open
air will help to get the bad taste of the new league out of our mouths."
They went into an open lot near by and had a half-hour's practice,
pitching to each other at a moderate pace, only now and then unlimbering
some of the fast balls that had been wont to stand opposing batters "on
their heads" in the exciting games of the season just ended.
"How does the old soup bone feel?" inquired Jim.
"Fine as silk," replied Joe; "I was afraid I might have strained it in
that last game. But it feels as strong now as it did at the beginning of
the season."
They had supper a little earlier than usual that night, for with the
exception of Joe's father, who was busy on a new invention, they were all
going to a show that evening at the Riverside Opera House. It promised to
be an interesting entertainment, for the names of several popular actors
appeared on the program. But what made it especially attractive to Joe and
his party was the fact that Nick Altman, the famous pitcher of the "White
Sox" of Chicago, was on the bill for a monologue. Although, being in the
American League, Joe and Jim had never played against him, they knew him
well by reputation and respected him for his ability in their chosen
profession.
"As a pitcher he sure is classy," remarked Joe. "They say that fast
inshoot of his is a lulu. But that doesn't say that he's any good on the
stage."
"He's pulling in the coin all right," replied Jim. "They say that his
contract calls for two hundred dollars a week. He won't have to eat
snowballs this winter."
"Jim tells me that a vaudeville manager offered you five hundred dollars a
week the day after you won the championship for the Giants," said Clara.
"So he did," replied Joe, "but it would have been a shame to take the
money."
"Such a shrinking violet," teased his sister.
"I'm sure he would make a very good actor," said his mother, who would
have been equally sure that he would make a good president of the United
States.
The night was fine, and the town Opera House was crowded to its capacity.
There was a buzz and whispering as Joe and his party entered and made
their way to their reserved seats near the center of the house, for
Riverside regarded the famous pitcher as one of its greatest assets. He
had given the quiet little village a fame that it would never have had
otherwise. In the words of Sol Cramer, the hotel keeper and village
oracle, Joe had "put Riverside on the map."
There were three or four sketches and vaudeville turns before Altman,
who, of course, was the chief attraction as far as Joe and his folks were
concerned, came on the stage. He had a clever skit in which baseball
"gags" and "patter" were the chief ingredients, and as he was a natural
humorist his act went "big" in the phrase of the profession. Knowing that
Joe lived in Riverside and would probably be in the audience, Altman
adroitly introduced his name in one of his anecdotes, and was rewarded by
a storm of applause which clearly showed how Joe stood in his home town.
"You own this town, Joe," laughed Jim, who was seated between him and
Clara--Jim could be depended on these days never to be farther away from
Clara than he could help.
"Yes," mocked Clara. "Any time he runs for poundkeeper he's sure to be
elected."
Joe was about to make some laughing retort, when his quick eye caught
sight of something that made the flush fade from his face and his heart
lose a beat.
From the wing at the left of the stage _a tiny wisp of smoke was
stealing_.
Like lightning, his quick brain sensed the situation. The house was old
and would burn like tinder. There were only the two exits--one on each
side of the hall. And the place was crowded--and his mother was there--and
Clara!
His plan was formed in an instant. He must reach a narrow corridor, by
which, out of sight of the audience, he could gain the back of the stage
and stamp out whatever it was that was making that smoke.
He rose to slip out, but at that moment a big bulk of a man sitting two
seats ahead of him jumped to his feet with a yell.
"Fire! Fire!" he shouted wildly. "The house is on fire!"